LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 21 February 2019

On 20 February, local authorities from the central Mexican state of Morelos reported the murder of Samir Flores, an environmental activist who opposed operations at the local Huexca thermoelectric plant, part of a wider energy project known as Proyecto Integral Morelos (PIM).

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 19 February 2019

On 18 February, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that Guillermo García Alcocer, head of Mexico’s energy commission (CRE), is affected by a case of conflict of interests and called for him to resign.

On 14 February, Mexico’s interior minister, Olga Sánchez Cordero, urged the federal senate to approve the plan to create a national guard on the government’s terms without the modifications made by the chamber of deputies.

On 14 February, the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reversed the proposed appointment of Edith Arrieta as deputy director at the national science & technology council (Conacyt), a federal government entity tasked with promoting scientific and technological development in the country, just two days after it was announced.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 11 February 2019

On 9 February, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appointed Karla Quintana Osuna as head of the Comisión Nacional de Búsqueda de Personas (CNB), the entity created by his government to lead the search for Mexico’s disappeared.

On 6 February, the United Nations (UN) working group on human rights in Mexico reiterated its “grave concern” at President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s plan to improve public security in the country with the creation of a national guard.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 4 February 2019

On 3 February, Mexico’s national human rights commission (CNDH) issued a statement, calling on the Mexican government to accept the competence of the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 31 January 2019

On 30 January, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador received Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, on the first day of the Spanish head of government’s two-day visit to Mexico.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 30 January 2019

On 29 January, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ruled out using force to end protests staged by teachers in Michoacán state who have been blockading railway lines since 14 January in demand of backdated salaries and bonuses.

On 27 January, a few hundred people took to the streets of Mexico City to protest against oil theft in the country (known as huachicoleo) and express their support for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his efforts to tackle it.

Development: On 24 January, Alejandro Gertz Manero, the head of Mexico’s newly revamped federal attorney general’s office (FGR), announced the opening of a new investigation into the ‘La Estafa Maestra’ corruption case that implicates various federal government officials.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 24 January 2019

* More than 140 freight trains are stranded in the state of Michoacán due to blockades by the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabjadores de la Educación (CNTE) teachers' union, which is demanding backdated salaries.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 23 January 2019

Development: On 22 January, a group of teachers affiliated to the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabjadores de la Educación (CNTE) teachers’ union staged a seventh day of public demonstrations in Mexico’s western Michoacán state, blocking railway lines in seven different parts of the state.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 22 January 2019

Development: On 21 January, international press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called upon Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to carry out a complete overhaul of state provisions for protecting journalists in Mexico.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 21 January 2019

Development: On 20 January, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated his promise of an independent investigation into the explosion of an illegally-tapped oil pipeline on 18 January, which has claimed 85 lives thus far.

Development: On 17 January President Andrés Manuel López Obrador expressed his discontent with the constitutional reform approved by the federal lower chamber of congress establishing a national guard in Mexico.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 16 January 2019

Development: On 15 January, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with legislators from his Juntos Haremos Historia (JHH) ruling coalition to urge them to build consensus in congress in support of the proposed creation of a national guard.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 15 January 2019

Development: On 14 January, the authorities in Mexico’s Guanajuato state reported that an oil tanker truck from the state-owned oil firm, Pemex, had been held up and stolen by criminals as it passed through the state.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 14 January 2019

Development: On 12 January, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador assured that he will not change the measures that his government has put in place to combat oil theft, despite continued fuel shortages across the country.

Development: On 10 January, Jan Jařab, the representative of the United Nations Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Mexico, re-iterated his concerns about the creation of a national guard in the country during a public audience in congress.

Development: On 9 January Martha Delgado, the deputy minister for multilateral affairs and human rights at Mexico’s foreign ministry (SRE), said that the government had approached the United Nations (UN) for assistance in the training of the country’s proposed new national guard.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 9 January 2019

Development: On 8 January, the Mexican government and the state-owned oil company Pemex reiterated calls to the Mexican people to remain calm and avoid panic buying in the face of continued fuel shortages across parts of the country.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 8 January 2019

Development: On 7 January the secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mexico’s José Ángel Gurría Treviño, presented two reports urging the government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to take “urgent action” to expand the fight against corruption.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 4 January 2019

Development: On 3 January, a wave of homicides was recorded across Mexico, including the murder in the state of Oaxaca of a municipal representative from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party.

LatinNews Regional Monitor: Mexico - 3 January 2019

Development: On 2 January, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador rejected as false figures published by national daily Reforma which suggest that homicides increased by 65% in December 2018, the first month of his six-year term.